Pickles
by big tears
Summary: Just a strange fic about Remus after OotP. He was the only one left. He was empty inside. Until he was helped by a girl who liked Pickes on her Cocoa Puffs...*COMPLETE*
1. The Stalker

It was early morning when Remus came down for breakfast. The sun was still hidden behind the buildings of London, tinting the sapphire sky with dark orange -- however, he was in no mood to sit and admire the majesty of the scene. He was too dejected to do very much on his own. When he was with everyone else here at number twelve he was only short of normal, but when alone... Which is what he was now: Alone... He didn't bother turning the lights on, and shut the drapes of the one window in the kitchen. 

  
Sighing, he decided to examine the ice-box, squinting when the bare lightbulb turned on, illuminating the cool (and nearly barren) inside. _Cold and nearly barren... Like me,_ Remus thought. He took the milk, and headed towards the pantry for the cereal.

  
_Cocoa Puffs or Shredded Wheat?_ he asked himself, the question bringing a wry smile to his face. He could imagine Sirius's answer just as vividly as he could remember the first time he had asked himself this question. Sirius had looked so shocked and affronted that someone could even _consider_ eating Shredded Wheat over Cocoa Puffs...

  
He reached for the Shredded Wheat. He wouldn't dare eat Cocoa Puffs again.

  
Remus had probably taken two bites of his breakfast before the kitchen light flickered on. He looked up to the doorway, and saw Ginny Weasley standing there in a t-shirt that went down past her knees -- _Probably belonged to a brother,_ he thought. 

  
She rubbed her eyes sleepily, and went about getting out her own favorite cereal, a bottle of butterbeer, and a jar of pickles. Then she sat down exactly across from him, tucked her fiery hair behind her ears, and proceeded with preparing her breakfast. He nearly fainted when he saw she had chosen Cocoa Puffs...

  
"Good morning," he said, as she began slicing a few pickles. 

  
"'Morning," she replied, sounding rather groggy. 

  
For a few moments, Remus just watched her. A little girl in an overlarge shirt slicing pickles and occasionally sipping butterbeer. She was puzzling, to say the least.

  
"What're you doing up this early?"

  
She looked up from her task, smiled, and giggled to herself. "I'm stalking you, that's what."

  
She seemed very amused with her answer, almost as though it were some strange inside joke. His depressed thoughts were momentarily pushed aside as Ginny continued to confuse him. Remus had never enjoyed confusement.

  
"How's that?" he queried.

  
"I've been keeping a watch on you," she said cheerfully. "I told Mum I was worried about you, because you seem so ... _fine_, and she said if I was worried I should do something about it -- without you knowing, of course, because then you might act even more fine when I was checking up on you, so as not to keep me worried. You know how you are," she smiled up at him, and dumped her pickles atop her cereal.

  
"What're you doing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what do you mean, 'checking up' on me?" 

  
"Pickles are good for you," she said, squaring her shoulders defensively. "Cocoa Puffs aren't. I have to get _some_ nutrition out of breakfast. But anyway," she shrugged. "I've just been watching you, y'know? Because if _my_ best friend died, I certainly wouldn't be handling things as well as you seem to be. Unless I was some wench from a smutty novel and I had killed my best friend because I had secretly been his lover and he was threatening to tell everyone so that I would pay him my life savings, but I don't think you swing that way..." she looked him in the eye and scrunched up her nose. "Do you?"

  
"No."

  
"Good. Well, just so you know I wasn't peeking on you in the shower or anything... I stayed awake until you had fallen asleep and I'd tuck you in, and if you got up in the night I'd follow you, but that was just to make sure you weren't about to hang yourself with a bedsheet or something like that." She sighed again, and dug her spoon into her Cocoa Pickle Puffs, taking a rather large bite. "If my best friend died," she said through the strange mix of food. "I'd prolly hang myself. But then again, you are quite a bit stronger than I am, emotionally..."

  
Remus put his spoon down and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, making little stars explode. He wasn't stronger than she was... He was just a bloody liar about everything... 

  
There was a clink (he guessed her spoon had hit the porcelain bown) and in the next minute she was sitting next to him, prying his hands away from his eyes. 

  
"Remus," she said quietly. "you don't need to feel bad. You've been really strong throughout this thing so far, but its not healthy. People need to break down sometimes. So if you need to cry, I'm right here. You might as well use my shoulder as anyone else's."

  
He buried his face in her shoulder before any tears could come -- although he couldn't avoid letting her hear the sobs, or see how they shook his body. She held him like a little boy and simply let him cry, without attempting to soothe him with meaningless phrases. She just held him. He just bawled.

  
He wasn't alone anymore. 


	2. Lost in the Stars

She knew he was awake when she went to tuck him in that night. She normally waited at least an hour before going in to see him, but standing in the doorway to his room after two, she could sense the symptoms of faux slumber -- and while Remus was much too relaxed, Ginny couldn't help but smile. He wanted to see if she had been telling the truth.

  
_Just because he's awake,_ she told herself, _is no reason not to let him be cared for._ She slipped through the small opening of the door very quietly, proceeding to close it behind her. Then, silently, she crept across the hardwood floor, and found herself standing next to his bed for the seventeenth time. He always looked so peaceful there, the lines of his face relaxed to thin creases, his hair falling across his eyes, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. Carefully, so as not to disturb his "rest", she smoothed the bedcovers, and sat down on the edge of his mattress as usual.

  
"Well," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "here we are again. It's funny... I never thought you'd get to sleep tonight." She held back a small sigh as she brushed his hair from his eyes. It was such a bloody shame, she thought, that _he_ had to be the one to go through everything. He was a werewolf, for one, which would be downright painful and also made it near impossible for him to ever have a decent job; and then two of his best friends (Ginny assumed he had been friends with Harry's mum, also) had been murdered at age twenty-one; Sirius had been sent to Azkaban; there was that dratted werewolf legislation; having to go work with Snape, and losing the only job he'd had in a long while because of the slimy git; and now Sirius dying, as well. There was just no end to this man's torture.

  
She shook her head softly, and trailed her fingers lightly across his face. "It's just not _fair_." she muttered bitterly. "People aren't meant to have to deal with things like this..." 

  
He stirred, very slightly, at these words. She paused, staring down at him with wide eyes -- she knew he was awake, and that it really didn't matter whether or not he opened his eyes, but the sudden thought of talking to him knocked her guard down... She waited, relieved when she realized his eye had just twitched. She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

  
"I guess it's time for your lullaby now," she commented, finding a wrinkle in the covers yet again and smoothing it. She caught what she was doing, and smiled. "Some days I think I'll end up just like my mother," She sighed again, and then cleared her throat. "Although nothing could make me want to have quite that many children... But, on to your song...

  
_Before Lord God made the sea and the land   
He held all the stars in the palm of his hand   
And they ran through his fingers like grains of sand  
And one little star fell alone..._"

  
Ginny finished a few minutes later, and smiled gently at her "dozing" friend. _I don't think I've ever seen him look this calm,_ she thought. _He's usually so worried, or tired-looking._

  
"I'm going to go to bed now," she said quietly. "Maybe tomorrow you can try pickles on your cereal...?" She chuckled to herself as she leaned down, and gave Remus a small kiss on his cheek. "Always remember there's someone in this house who loves you."

  
She stood up reluctantly, and headed towards the door; and as she reached for the handle, she could have sworn she heard him whisper back...

  
"Thank you."

  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  
There will probably be one more chapter in this. Also, I forgot to disclaim...

**I do not own the characters... blah blah blah... Neither do I own the song. It's Lost in the Stars by Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson**. 


	3. Cloud Watching

It was amazing how the sky could change from a dismal, cloud-covered gray to a peaceful silver when one was in the right company. And how the clouds -- usually the bearers of literal and figurative rain for Remus -- now seemed to be more cheerful. They came in amusingly assorted shapes and sizes, and Ginny and himself went out every day to see who or what they could spot up above them.

  
They would find a pleasantly green little hill, first of all. Preferably one covered in clovers and morning glory. Then they would spread out a blanket and lie down, facing the heavens with a keen eye -- searching for anything and everything.

  
"You know," she said one afternoon, blinking up at the sun. "I think mum and dad are worried about me."

  
He stopped his search, and turned his head to look at her, carefully studying the expression on her freckled face. "Why do you say that?" he asked. 

  
A grin spread across her face, and she turned to face him as well. "Well... I think they've got the idea into their heads that we go off to snog every day." She sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Probably something Ron's been _hinting_ at. The other night he saw me go into you're room to say goodnight."

  
Remus's eyes widened at this, as he was completely astonished that anyone could assume something so... strange of him. "But... but you're just a little girl!" he said, sounding shocked.

  
"I'm not that little." she muttered, obviously perturbed. "But, anyway... it's not as though I'm stupid. If I had a boyfriend that was your age I'd certainly never mention him -- let alone have a relationship with him in the same house as my parents."

  
"Well, aren't you the poster-girl for Honesty."

  
"Shut up, Remus."

  
They both retured to combing for images, the air considerably tighter now. Nothing was said for quite some time, and they simply scanned in silence -- until...

  
"I really do like spending time with you, though,"

  
Her voice held a slight tremor, as though she weren't quite sure she should be saying this to him. But as soon as she finished the sentence his heart skipped a beat, and he smiled gratefully. 

  
"I'm glad. I like spending time with you, too."

  
A pause.

  
"The idea of us being together is ridiculous, though."

  
"Unbelievably."

  
"It would never work out."

  
"Certainly not."

  
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, and slyly whispered: "I think this is the part where you lean over and kiss me hard on the mouth, muttering my name between between busses and tangling your hands in my hair..."

  
His heart sped up again, missing more beats than Remus thought it was allowed to. "You could have just asked," he whispered back.

  
  


[*]

  
Okay. That chapter was weird. But it's the end. In this chapter, time has passed and their relationship has changed a bit. I hope I made it seem that Ginny had a small little thing for Remus... Anway, this is the end. Thanks for reading ^_^ 


End file.
